Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on how the government's implementation of an effects test will enhance the competitive process for small businesses in Australian agriculture? How will this change help to drive innovation and jobs growth in my electorate of Capricornia and elsewhere?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. The honourable member grew up in a small business in Rockhampton with her parents. I think she worked for 21 years in the Lucky Daniel News & Casket Agency—if I remember correctly.

It is the experience of so many on this side of the House—that is, they come from small business. I can see the member for Cowper who was involved with caravan parks. I can see the member for Flynn who had a fuel distributing business. Below him I can see a man who was involved in the hotel business. Another one was an electrical trader. In essence, what drives people on this side of the House is a belief that you can start from any position in life, from any sense of education, from any sense of wealth or without, and make your way through the economic and social stratification by reason of small business to obtain your highest level of freedom, to be master of your own ship. That is what we believe on this side. Therefore, we stand behind laws and changes to laws that allow a person that sense of freedom.

It does provide a sense of ingenuity, a sense of in nimbleness to an economy because it makes sure that access to the marketplace and to the economy remains open for all. We know that with more participants in a marketplace we have a greater sense of competition and, over the longer run, obviously, a better price and also a greater sense of being able to develop products and processes.

There are over two million small businesses in Australia employing well over four million people. It is such a large section of our economy.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can hear the flippant discussions from the other side where they would run it down, but, of course, there is a large difference—there is an incredibly large difference.

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left!

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, if we can just see how many people on the coalition side have been involved in small business. I think we can see that it is quite an involvement. But if we pose the same question to the Labor Party side—how many of you have owned a small business or run a small business?

Opposition members interjecting—

One! I have to give it to you—there is one, two. That is great. So it is not surprising that they just do not get it. To them, they theorise about it, they observe it from a great distance, but they have not been a participant in small business. They do not hold that zeal that we hold on this side that you can be the master of your own ship and not be run by big unions or big business—to, basically, make your own way in the world. That is, in essence, what takes people into the National Party and the Liberal Party.

We can see it even now in discussions with people such as Lia Mahony of the Tamworth chamber of commerce and in how interested they are to make sure that we provide a marketplace which gives them a better place to get better protections for pharmacies, for fuel distributors and for all those who make up our side of the political fence. (Time expired)